


have you seen my ghost?

by dourdayandsourmouth (seguement)



Category: RWBY
Genre: Alternate Universe, Gen, Necromancer!Weiss, s3 finale spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-20
Updated: 2016-02-20
Packaged: 2018-05-22 02:07:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,566
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6066625
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seguement/pseuds/dourdayandsourmouth
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She summons the boarbatusk as often as she can, even when she’s not fighting. She is so proud of her accomplishment that she doesn’t even notice how it unnerves people, how they call her ‘the Grimm girl’ behind her back.</p>
            </blockquote>





	have you seen my ghost?

**Author's Note:**

> Basically in this AU the Schnee family Semblance is Glyphs without the summoning part, and Weiss's Semblance is just the summoning part.

_She is seven years old when she kills her first insect._

A butterfly, resplendent in black and blue. It chooses to rest on one of the paths through the gardens and she accidentally steps on it. She cries for five minutes.

Half an hour later, her father enters the gardens and finds her laughing. Flitting about her, alighting at random on her nose, her hands, her hair, is a brilliant white butterfly. Her father is livid.

There has not been a member of the Schnee family who did not possess their hereditary Semblance in over one hundred years. Her mother is removed from the estate a day later, and nobody says a word.

She summons the butterfly when she needs to think. It reminds her of the price of power.

* * *

_She is fourteen years old when she kills her first Grimm._

A boarbatusk, in the Rimebough Forest. They move slower in the Atlesian climate, allowing Weiss to dash around it, kick it onto its side, and bury her rapier in its gut.

Her sister nods approvingly. “If you wish to become a huntress, you must do more than spar against your trainers. You will not go through initiation having never slain a Grimm before,” she said before they set out this morning. Weiss’s Semblance unnerves Winter, but she has always been pragmatic. And, above all else, she trusts her sister.

Weiss allows herself a small smile, but on the inside she is ecstatic. She has taken the first step towards becoming a huntress. This is how she will get out from under the shadow of the SDC and become her own person.

She summons the boarbatusk as often as she can, even when she’s not fighting. She is so proud of her accomplishment that she doesn’t even notice how it unnerves people, how they call her ‘the Grimm girl’ behind her back.

* * *

_She is sixteen years old when she kills her first faunus._

A member of the White Fang, part of an attempt to abduct her on the way home from a recital. The organisation knows of her training, of her Semblance, but underestimates her nonetheless. They blockade the road with cars at both ends and seek to overwhelm her protectors with sheer numbers.

She panics at first when her car screeches to a halt and she hears her driver pleading for her life, followed by a gunshot. She throws herself to the other side of the car when she hears the door nearest her begin to groan, and activates her Semblance just as it is ripped clear off its hinges. Her summon shares none of her fear, though, as it charges her attacker and bears them to the ground. Its partial autonomy would fascinate her under any other circumstance.

Weiss catches a glimpse of a bone mask, flecked with red. She knows this mask. It is dead and vanished family members, it is her father yelling into his scroll and breaking things late at night, it is being forcefully sat down with a list of names and told to _hate, hate, hate_. She draws her weapon and moves towards her enemy, who is still struggling under the weight of her summon.

The boarbatusk shifts slightly at her approach, as if to give her space. She stares at the faunus, and her face contorts in a snarl. Before she can falter, can second-guess her rage, she stabs Myrtenaster through one of the slits in his mask. Then she staggers off some distance and throws up.

By the time her guard detail dispatches the rest of the White Fang and comes to find her, she has kicked snow over her vomit and cleaned her blade using the dead man’s uniform.

She summons him out of curiosity. He follows her commands perfectly, spoken or thought. There is no trace of sentience lurking in his gaze. When she spars with him, he uses moves she’s never learned. She cannot take off his mask. She cannot make him speak. She realises that the things she summons are more appropriately termed ‘it’.

Once she finishes her experiments, Weiss never summons him again. She doesn’t want a member of the White Fang near her, living or not. Friendly or not.

* * *

_She kills her first friend when she is nineteen._

A young woman, bright blonde hair still giving off sparks of flame whenever she breathes out shakily. A routine mission that turned out to be an overwhelming ambush, leaving her teammates wounded yet ultimately okay, and Yang with a missing limb and a gaping hole in her abdomen that no amount of Aura can fix.

“Looks like it’s your… time to shine, yeah, princess?” She makes a weak gesture to the glowing white Alpha Beowolf that’s currently looming over both of them.

“I- what? No! You can’t ask me to do that to you! We’ll find a settlement, get you help somewhere, I promise.” She is frantic, reaching out as if to try and staunch the wounds before stopping herself, over and over. Weiss knows they’re in the middle of nowhere, that there will be no settlement to find, no help to get. She just doesn’t want to admit it.

Yang attempts a smile, baring red-stained teeth. “C’mon. You’re not going to let me-” a cough, blood dribbling from the corner of her mouth. “Be the first person in Remnant’s history… to kill the jerk who killed me? That’s harsh, Weiss.”

Weiss opens her mouth to further berate her, but all that comes out is a choked sob. She stands on unsteady legs and walks a short distance away to collect herself. Ruby and Blake arrive at some point while she is taking deep breaths, steeling herself for what’s to come. She makes her way back to her team, her emotions hidden behind the blank mask she used so often before joining team RWBY. Blake and Ruby are distraught. Yang is wearing a mask too, still trying to be the brave one for everyone else.

“There she is,” Yang says softly.

They say their farewells, and Weiss ends up cradling Yang’s head in her lap, stroking her hair until she’s gone.

The first time she summons her likeness, Blake leaves for a week, and Ruby doesn’t speak to her for the rest of the day. She apologises, but knows in her heart that it was necessary.

* * *

_She kills her first nemesis when she is twenty._

An assassin, responsible for more deaths than Weiss can count, though she only truly cares about one of them. Since Cinder was frozen on top of Beacon Tower, her allies have scattered to the winds. Weiss finds Mercury Black in a modest house on the outskirts of Haven, taking whatever jobs come his way.

The fight is quick and brutal, neither combatant holding anything back. By the time it’s over, the house is ablaze, and Mercury is sprawled on his back on the damp lawn, his legs two sparking and useless hunks of metal. He looks at the two figures standing over him, and his eyes widen slightly.

“So, does this count as irony or poetic justice?” His words are glib, but Weiss can see the flicker of fear in his eyes. She relishes it.

“The latter, I think. She wanted to be the first person on Remnant to avenge herself on her killer. I was more than happy to accommodate her request.” Weiss places her hand on her summon’s shoulder and squeezes lightly, as if to calm her down. Her summon’s not angry, never gets angry, but sometimes Weiss likes to pretend, if only for a second, that it’s really Yang.

“I’m guessing you’re not going to accept bribes, then?” His words are slow and measured, and his eyes are darting around, looking for a way out of the situation. Her summon steps forward and stomps down on his chest, holding him in place. There is a quiet, pained gasp.

“You guessed correctly. I am curious about one thing, though. When I bring you back, what do you think your legs will look like? Will they be prostheses or your flesh-and-blood ones? Or perhaps you will have no legs at all, and have to resort to pulling yourself along with your hands?” She smiles unpleasantly at Mercury, who does not respond. “I suppose there is only one way to find out.”

His summon turns out to have his two prosthetic legs, Weiss discovers. She uses it to unnerve the comrades of his that she hunts down, and does not feel guilty.

* * *

_She kills her first and only love when she is twenty-nine._

She does not summon her.

* * *

  _She kills for the last time when she is thirty-seven._

The ruins of Beacon are empty of Grimm, now that the beast that attracted them is long dead, and it is here that Cinder Fall holds court, the solitary queen of a dying kingdom.

 They meet in Beacon’s main amphitheatre. Cinder is standing on stage, and spreads her arms in welcome when she sees a white figure enter. “Weiss Schnee. Here we are, both alone at the end of things.”

Weiss comes to a stop, and stares at her. In her eyes, Cinder sees a long-banked fury flicker to life and begin to grow. Several figures form by her side, growing more distinct by the second.

“I am many things, Cinder,” she says, drawing Myrtenaster, “but I am never alone.”

**Author's Note:**

> Pretty heavily inspired by skiretehfox's art.
> 
> Title from Wintersleep's Weighty Ghost.


End file.
